happy australia day

Happy Birthday, Oz!

Australia, the chance of a lifetime
Australia, you get what you work for
Nobody has to be any better than what they want to be
Australia, no class distinction
Australia, no drug addiction
Nobody's got a chip on their shoulder
We'll surf like they do in the U.S.A.
We'll fly down to Sydney for our holiday
On sunny Christmas Day
Australia, Australia
No one hesitates at life or beats around the bush in Australia
So if you're young and if you're healthy
Why not get a boat and come to Australia
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Everyone walks around with a perpetual smile across their face
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Everyone gets around and nobody can ever get you down
We'll surf like they do in the U.S.A.
We'll fly down to Sydney for our holiday
On sunny Christmas Day
Australia, Australia!

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9393/137dj.jpg

JOHN HOWARD: We've too much of a stew and a concoction of issues and causes. Now, they're part of it, but you've also got to teach the sequence. You've got to say something about the order in which things appeared. You get to understand why was it fully that European settlement occurred in Australia, rather than teach too much about whether it should have occurred. I mean, it did occur and rather than waste our energy in the pejorative about the character of it, we ought to, first of all, understand some of the causes of it and some of the background of it.

MAXINE McKEW: Why do you see a deficit on this? Are you getting complaints from parents or have you talked to, say, history teachers?

JOHN HOWARD: It is self-apparent. It is obvious to me that there's -

MAXINE McKEW: Why so?

JOHN HOWARD: From talking to people. The increasing number of people I talk to, younger people, who don't have a full understanding of some of these things.

MAXINE McKEW: Now, you talked also today about a coalition of the willing...

JOHN HOWARD: Yes.

MAXINE McKEW: ...that you are hoping to recruit and you mentioned the former premier of NSW Bob Carr.

JOHN HOWARD: Well, I'm not formally... Yes, on earlier occasions he's lamented the decline in the quality of history teaching and I don't have some formal thing in mind, but the point I was trying to make was it's not a party political thing. I would hope that people who value a rigorous, proper teaching of history in this country would join us.

MAXINE McKEW: OK. But what's the action plan? Have you said to your new Education Minister, Julie Bishop, "This is what I want you to do in terms of national standards of teaching history?"

JOHN HOWARD: I think she will have read the speech. I'm not in the business of trying to impose financial levers on states and it's not that sort of thing.

MAXINE McKEW: But you have done that, sorry, Brendan Nelson has done that on other issues.

JOHN HOWARD: Please, let me answer the question. I think this is a thing where, as Prime Minister, I've made a very considered statement. It will be obvious to people that I feel very strongly about it. I hope it does ignite a debate and I hope out of that there is a sensible response from state education departments. I don't expect it immediately. These things take time - it's not something where the Commonwealth is necessarily trying to bully - but we do have a deficit here. I think it is bad for the country that we don't understand enough about our history, including the history of this country since 1901. There are so few people who understand that the adoption of our Constitution followed a vote - the first time that a democracy came into being as a result of a vote of that kind. Very few Australians understand that. Very few Australians understand how early we were into the field of giving women, for example, the vote. We were way ahead of most countries in Europe. I mean, these are things that I don't think we understand.

MAXINE McKEW: Has this come to your attention because there are, say, younger people in your office or other ministers' offices that are ignorant of these issues?

JOHN HOWARD: It is everywhere apparent. It is not just in offices.

MAXINE McKEW: It's a widespread problem?

JOHN HOWARD: I think it is. Yes, I do.

MAXINE McKEW: Prime Minister, for your time tonight. Thank you.

you should've gone to the walkabout on charing cross road. i didn't go in but i walked past it a few times yesterday and there was carnage spilling out through the doors.

a belated happy australia day!

Too bad we can't switch Federal Governments.

then realizing im a day late anyways

OMFG I did the samething this year!!! I am nothing if not predictable. God I dont even *remember* doing clubs last year.

but happy a-day, aussies!

you know, i try to reach out...

Matt: oh, right. No I went nutso on Aus day eve, got VERY VERY drunk and spent all of Aus day itself in bed/vomming/having a migraine/being very sick indeed.

I R HARDCORE.

I regret that I have a good twelve hours to go before I could contemplate lunch, First I should sleep. And then breakfast. After that, lunch may well be on the cards.

What did we do? Us Aussies at the office went out to have a few "refreshments". I wish we didn't, I feel like death now.

I went to this too, bloody sweltering. I'm glad it didn't sell out, that would've made it unbearable. Great show anyhow - I got a bit of a crush on her backup singer, cool lady.